A bill that would have required all drivers in Colorado to use hands-free devices to talk on their cellphones while driving got a major pruning in the state Senate on Monday afternoon.

In a drastic change, the Senate took out the ban on hand-held cellphone conversations for adult drivers.

Instead, after the amendment, the bill merely bans text-messaging while driving, across all age groups. Drivers under 18 years old still would be barred from talking at all on cellphones while driving.

The bill, House Bill 1094, still needs a final approval in the Senate, expected today.

Lawmakers must then negotiate how to reconcile the version passed in the House — which would ban all hand-held cellphone calls while driving — and the one passed in the Senate.

After the changes were made Monday afternoon, bill sponsor Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins, said he was OK with the revised bill “in the main,” but said he had hoped to be able to pass a stiffer version.

“This is something I think we need to make people aware of how dangerous it is,” Bacon said.

Meanwhile, Sen. Shawn Mitchell, a Broomfield Republican who opposed the bill, said he still has issues with it.

“I’m glad we throttled back our paternalism,” he said. “I still think this is a misguided effort to protect people from themselves.”

The bill passed the House last month with bipartisan support, but Republicans in the Senate on Monday aligned against the bill, arguing that it is nanny-ish.

Bacon countered that the bill was necessary to save lives and crack down on a major driving distraction. He got support earlier in the day from Gov. Bill Ritter on Mike Rosen’s 850-KOA radio show.

“There’s just too many accidents happening as a result of people being on the cellphone,” Ritter said. “It’s appropriate to pass this legislation.”

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A prominent white nationalist is suing Twitter for banning his accounts at a time when social networks are trying to crack down on hateful and abusive content without appearing to censor unpopular opinions.

The social media service Twitter is believed to have suspended thousands of accounts for being automated bots, or for other policy violations, drawing outcry from fringe conservative media figures who lost followers in the move.